Day 23 & 24

What I love about this place:

The mangos…unlike home, are best eaten when green.  These mangos are so incredibly juicy and dense that it almost tastes somewhat pungent.  It is truly nector from the nature.

The $4.00 massages from Sara’s Spa by Deeta.  One of us has been going every night at 8:00 p.m. for one hour and it is the best way to just completely relax.  The outdoor shower is magical too.

The small pancakes with different flavors on top …about a dozen for 70 cents—yummy!

The swimming pool, sorry to rub it in..but man it is sure great to have a swim or two or three a day to cool off (in November no doubt).

The thunder and rain—unlike any storm I have ever experienced.

The Bali Vanilla -finally made the splurge today and opened up the purse strings; for a whopping 4 bucks I purchased about 25 vanilla sticks…still sticky and moist and smelling of nothing but pure vanilla. Sydney couldn’t get enough of the smell. Though I think I might just have to mail these suckers on to a certain someone who just always makes us the best food (SJ). 

We had a nice play date today with Eka’s and his wife and 1.5 year old daughter named Putrie.  Eka, is a waiter that we have made friends with at the Barbekue restaurant located in front of our villa.  Putrie was so cute and it was nice to just chill out with another kid by the pool.  Putri had never been in a pool before so she really just took it easy by only putting her feet in. 

 

Shortly after this visit, I went with Gyspy to a not for profit birthing centre to have a tour and drop off some baby clothes, supplies and donations.  This place is called the Yayasan Bumi Sehat “Gentle Births for a Peaceful Future”  I am not too sure where to start or what to say about this experience.  It is an amazing, grassroots, truly magical place that sadly, is desperately needed. 

The centre provides pre/post pregnancy care to women and families who have little or no money. Let’s be blunt…by our standards they are poor.  The care is pretty holistic with volunteers from around the world that come as midwives, nurses, and doctors as well as teachers, massage therapists, acupuncturists and alternative care providers.  One day a week the clinic is open for pediatrics, the next day it is open for stress management/meditation/acupuncture and it is always open for labor and deliveries.  They also have a youth centre ..ahh right up my alley.. in which volunteers can teach english and computer skills to youth. 

This centre is humble and yet so incredible.  It was interesting to note that the maternal mortality ration on Bali is the highest among the ASEAN group.  Sitting at 718 deaths per 100000 live births.  This is largely due to the malnutrition caused by the introduction of Green Revolution rice in the 1960’s.  Overnight the staple of food of the people stopped providing pregnant women with the full rainbow of colors that rice once had, which in turn was necessary to sustain healthy pregnancies and birth outcomes. . . Apparently red, blue and black rice are incredibly important to both the mother and the fetus. 

 

During this visit I was invited to go into the birthing room where I was so blessed to see a 12 hour old baby boy sleeping on the bed with his mother and father looking on.  I am not the most emotional type, but that just got to me.  The universal look of love was on the mother’s face and the father looks so proud.  Don’t we all just start out so pure…

This little baby was beautiful!   I was also lucky enough to be allowed to take the mothers picture after the umbiillical cord was cut—I could get into the very important significance of this and the placenta and etc but it may just be best to say that this is VERY important to the Balinese people.  

 

I then ran into one of our two Richards that we met when we got here.  These two guys are in their forties (maybe 50’s) and are from Canada.  They are volunteering with this centre for 6 months.  One of them is a well known chef in Eastern Canada, they both have an organic hobby farm (the other Richard is a forester by trade) and they are so excited to be helping out.  Richard, the chef, is going to teach the youth how to cook and then he hopes to set up a restaurant in which the kids will cook and make the money.  I think he is going to make a success of it as he just eludes that kind of ‘can do’ vibe.  The other Richard is going to teach English.

 

I received their wish list of supplies that they would love to have and have told my Rich what I want for Christmas is on that list.   For anyone who is following along and for my own future reference the web site is www.bumisehatbali.org 

I guess I just need to end this rather long blurb by saying that I feel so blessed and so lucky to have healthy children and that I am thinking of my pregnant friends back home today and missing them.  It would not surprise me to guess that Moira had her baby today, as it seems to be a baby kind of day and Rich and I are both thinking of her daily.